Fighting for Equity in Education
//The June issue of the RAND Corporation’s Congressional Education Newsletter informs members of the US Congress that pay for performance for teachers in US schools is not working. Continue reading “No Evidence That Incentive Pay for Teacher Teams Improves Student Outcomes”
//The OECD has just delivered another blow to the Federal Government’s teacher bonus scheme. It comes on top of the recent report on the schools workforce by the Productivity Commission which recommended against bonus payments as a way to improve teacher performance. Continue reading “Another Blow to Teacher Performance-Pay Schemes”
//The secret is well and truly out about performance pay – it just does not work even in business. But education policy makers are not hearing it.
Leading international business academics say that performance-related pay does not work in business and should be scrapped. An article in a recent issue of the prestigious Harvard Business Review says that the evidence keeps growing that pay for performance is ineffective. It says that there are other ways to motivate employees that yield better results at lower cost. Continue reading “Performance Pay Does Not Even Work in Business”
//One of the major teacher performance pay schemes in the United States has failed to increase student achievement according to a comprehensive study published this month. Student achievement in reading, mathematics and science was no better in schools participating in the Chicago Teacher Advancement Program (TAP) than in comparable schools that did not implement the program.
However, by changing the working conditions in schools, the program may have contributed to higher teacher retention rates in TAP schools compared to non-TAP schools. The program increased the amount of mentoring, promotion opportunity, and compensation relative to non-TAP schools, and these may have translated into making Chicago TAP schools a more desirable place to continue working. Continue reading “High Profile Teacher Bonus Pay Program has Failed to Increase Student Results”
//Few or no gains come from performance pay incentives for teachers according to a report published last month by a US education think tank. It says that pay alone is insufficient to motivate teachers to teach differently and improve student achievement. Pay incentives ignore what teachers care most about.
The report found that what most teachers desire is the know-how to teach their subjects well and autonomy and supports to best meet the needs of their students. It says that expertise in teaching must be rewarded in ways that move beyond recruitment bonuses or pay for improved student test scores. Continue reading “Tapping Into What Makes Teachers Tick”
//According to The Age (12 January 2012) nearly half of participants in the fast-track Teach for Australia program are no longer teaching after two years. Only 56% of those who entered the program are still teaching after their initial two-year commitment.
Of the 45 graduates who began the two-year program in 2010, two dropped out in the first year, nine are going into another industry, nine are doing something else in the education field, such as a master’s of teaching, and 25 remain teaching.
This is a very high attrition rate. It far exceeds the attrition rate of new teachers entering the profession through traditional teacher training. Continue reading “High Attrition from Teach for Australia”
//A wide-ranging report on the schools workforce by the Productivity Commission proposes that governments should make more use of higher pay to attract teachers to hard-to-staff subjects and schools but defer introduction of the national performance bonus scheme for teachers. It also says that education disadvantage is a high priority for school workforce reforms and calls for a comprehensive evaluation of programs that target disadvantaged students. Continue reading “Wide-ranging Report on Improving the Schools Workforce”
//While Peter Garrett, our federal education minister fiddles and doesn’t respond to the report of last year’s Inquiry into School Libraries and Teacher Librarians and its (inadequate) recommendations, Australian students continue to lose teacher librarians and school libraries. Continue reading “Teacher Librarians are Fast Disappearing”
//Another plank of the education platform of the Gillard Government is in danger of collapsing. The fast-track teacher training program Teach for Australia is under question following new research findings that the majority of teachers in its US counterpart Teach for America leave teaching after 3 years. The attrition rate in Teach for America is much higher than for traditionally trained new teachers. Continue reading “High Teacher Turnover in Teach for America”
//A scathing indictment of the market-based model of education was recently published on the website of the business magazine Forbes. It makes for compulsory reading. It says the neo-liberal market reform agenda in education has failed and that teacher unions are needed to defend and improve public education.
The author accuses market-based reformers as being “simply in the business of union-busting” and “seeking to dismantle a powerful political opponent while ushering for-profit schools in through the side door, and handing out lucrative contract to political allies in the private sector”. He says the neo-liberal approach will result in an even lower-paid teaching force, with fewer benefits and less job security. Continue reading “Business Writer Defends Teacher Unions”